The Critique of Impure Reason

Foucault and the Frankfurt School

Bibliographic Data

ID6350239
AuthorsThomas Mccarthy (0009-0000-9995-2914, Northwestern University), Thomas J Mccarthy (0000-0003-0414-010X, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume18
Issue3
Pages437-469
Publication date1990-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591790018003005
OpenAlexW2025051209
LanguageEN
Citations received42

The differences between Michel Foucault’s genealogy and Jurgen Habermas’s critical social theory are misrepresented by the usual opposition between the nominalistic particularism of the former and the abstract universalism of the latter. Foucault treats even the consensus that results from raising and accepting validity claims – claims to truth, rightness, sincerity, and so forth – as an instrument or result of the exercise of power. The overly individualistic optic of Foucault’s later work brings culture and society into view primarily as constraining networks of imposed rules, prohibitions, values, standards, identities, styles, and so forth. Foucault’s genealogical project can be viewed as a form of the critique of reason. Inasmuch as modern philosophy has understood itself to be the most radical reflection on reason, its conditions, the limits, and effects, the continuation-through-transformation of that project today requires a sociohistorical turn

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Philosophy